Pianobreaks.com Pianobreaks Basics: Guide to Jazzy Chords and Improvisation
By Mark Meronek http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
This guide is for people who have very little piano experience and who want to learn jazzy chords and piano improvisation. Here I've laid out the fundamentals of what I've learned over the past 10 years in what I think is the fastest, most effective way to teach someone to play beautiful jazzy chords and improvise with feeling. I think of the piano as an exciting, boundless mode of selfexpression, never as something dull or boring, so I tend to focus on your enjoyment and teaching you how to play beautiful chords as quickly as possible. I use chords to teach piano fundamentals at the same time, so that you spend less time practicing scales and more time learning chords you can apply immediately to your playing. Feel free to share this guide with as many people as you want to. Thanks for reading and I hope you find this helpful! - Mark
The 3 Laws of Pianobreaks 1. Always make sure you're having fun while playing piano. Make it fun by always gravitating towards what you like to play. 2. Stop playing stuff that's boring to you and start to explore the chords and songs that you love. Explore possibilities without needing permission, and throw out all of the crap that you don't like. If it doesn't feel like something you want to play, throw it out! Never bog yourself down in scales or boring exercises. Ever. 3. Treat piano as a relaxation time, a break from the stresses of life, work, school, and everything else. Don't ever let stress or anything else interrupt this sacred time for you. Any 'have-tos' or feelings of obligation will poison your love of music and the pure, beautiful authenticity you already have to bring to it. Keep your piano time as a time where you are free to express yourself however you want to, in whatever way you want to, solely for your own enjoyment. http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
Jazzy Chords and the 2357 Voicing Chord #1 - Playing a C Major 7th Chord
First focus on learning the names of all the notes, from A-G, that'll help a LOT. For now let's just focus on an easy major scale like C major, which is made up of all of the white keys starting from the note C and going up the piano until you hit C again. Once you learn this C major scale and the 7 notes in it, try playing a major chord by playing the first note of the scale (C), and then playing every other note from that note (C E G B). So again, to play a C major chord, first learn the major scale (all white keys), then start from the note C and play every OTHER note in that all white keys scale, which ends up being C E G B in your left hand. You'll notice that the D, the F, and the A were skipped because you are playing every other note from C, meaning that after the C you skip the D to play E, you skip the F to play G, and you also skip the A to play B. This C Major chord, C E G B, is also called a 1 3 5 7 voicing (a voicing is just another name for a 'particular way to play a chord,' you can pretty much substitute 'chord' for 'voicing') because those are the notes you're playing in the scale. The C is the 1, the D is the 2, E is the 3, and that continues until you reach the next C note, which is the 8th (or the 1 again). If you were taking classical lessons, you would probably end up playing a '135' voicing, rather than a 1357 voicing, which is called a C Major chord. Try that out and play C E G in your left hand, and if you repeat those notes up the keyboard you'll notice it sounds really classical. The jazz voicings that we're going to play include the 7th note, rather than stopping at the 5, so they are called C Major 7th chords (because of the included 7th note). http://www.pianobreaks.com
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Play this C Major 7th chord (C E G B) in your left hand with every finger except your middle finger unless it's uncomfortable for you. This is the fingering that works for most people though, so when you're playing these beginning chords just remember to 'flick yourself off backwards' every time you do (it's just a funny thing I tell my students to remember their fingerings, they tend to remember it too).
Adding the Right Hand - 2 3 5 7 Voicing After you can play that chord, try to add the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 7th notes to the chord with your right hand. So for C major 7th, with your left hand you play C E G B, and then with your right hand you play the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 7th notes of the C major scale, which are D E G and B. Get good at playing that chord voicing, with the 1 3 5 7 in your left hand (LH) and 2 3 5 7 in your right hand (RH). If you are playing the right notes, a C major 7th chord with the 2 3 5 7 on the top, you'll play: LH - C E G B and RH - D E G B at the same time, and it should sound really nice and jazzy. To learn that chord in another major scale, just repeat the process you did with C major by first learning a major scale (i.e. F major scale) and finding out which notes are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on, and then playing 1 3 5 7 in your left hand (for F major it would be F A C E), and 2 3 5 7 in your right hand (G A C E for F Major).
Soloing on Major Chords On these major chords you can play the 1 3 5 7 in your LH and solo freely with your right hand. Try playing all white keys with your right hand first. Don't worry about how it sounds, just have fun playing the chord in your left hand and soloing in your RH. http://www.pianobreaks.com
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Now try playing the same chord in your left hand, and solo using only the '2 3 5 7' voicing in your right hand, and move that chord up the piano, playing those same notes (D E G B) up high on the keyboard, then lower. While you're soloing on all white keys, if you ever want to land on notes that sound good, you can just play the notes of the 2 3 5 7 and they'll always sound good. What I mean is that those notes, the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 7th notes, will always sound good over a major chord, so playing them in our right hand is a really good idea since we're trying to start soloing but don't quite know which notes sound good yet. You can solo on those 2 3 5 7 notes as well as the all white keys scale, and all of those notes will sound good except the 4th, so it's a good idea to try to play the 4th faster than the other notes and use it as a 'passing tone' rather than holding that note out for a really long time (try it, play C E G B in your LH and hold the note F in your right hand and notice how it sounds pretty dissonant over the LH chord). Just as a quick note, soloing on this 2 3 5 7 voicing in your RH is called an 'arpeggio,' which means you are playing a chord, but playing each of the notes separately instead of as a single chord. Also, I will sometimes refer to chords as C Major, C Major 7th, or C Major 7 chords, but they all mean the same thing, they are all C Major chords.
Chord #2 - The 'D Chord'
Now that we know a C major 7th chord, let's take those notes in our left hand, and move all of those notes up by one note in this 'all white keys' scale, C E G B becomes D F A C. This chord (we'll call it a 'D' chord) can be used along with the C major 7th chord to solo, so definitely learn those two chords and get really good at going between them with your LH so you can solo in your right hand with some scales. http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
Just like the C major 7th chord, you can play a 2 3 5 7 in the right hand for the D chord, so you'll be playing LH D F A C and RH E F A C, which should sound like a really full chord. Try going between that chord and the C major 7th chord and see how nice and smooth it sounds. For soloing over these two chords, you can play either the all white keys scale (C major) or the 'C pentatonic Scale' works really well over it too. The C major pentatonic scale is a 5 note scale (penta means 5) and it is a scale based on the 1 2 3 5 and 6th notes of the major scale, so in C major, the C major pentatonic scale is C D E G A, and you can play it anywhere on the keyboard to solo over these two chords. Now let's add some new techniques to these two chords, C Major 7th and the D Chord:
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Simple and Powerful Chord Techniques Pedaling Use the right pedal only, the other two really aren't that useful when we're starting out. The right pedal sustains notes so that you don't have to hold them in your hands while the sound still plays. An easy way to test this is to keep doing this exercise: 1. Hold Right Pedal Down 2. Play LH - C E G B RH - D E G B 3. Lift both hands off the keyboard while holding down the pedal Keep doing this exercise until you have total control of holding the sound for as long as you want. Wave Chord This is a really great technique, I use it a ton in my playing. Rather than playing all of the notes of a chord at one time, you can play the notes as if there were a 'wave' going from the left side of the keyboard to the right side. Use it on the C major chord you already know. What will actually happen is that from the left to the right, your left hand will play in your pinky C, then your ring finger will play E, then play G, B, and continue up without stopping to the 2 3 5 7 in your right hand. Make sure you play each note from the left to the right and HOLD DOWN each note that you play, so in the end you will end up playing 8 notes going from the left to the right, with each note held down. It will sound really brilliant if you get it right, like a beautiful wash of sound that sounds like a waterfall, I think that's the best way I can describe it in writing. Definitely a technique to master.
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©Mark Meronek 2012
Bass Notes Whenever you are playing any chord, you can always go down lower on the keyboard and play the 'bass note,' or the '1st' note of the chord that you're playing to give you a nice strong sound. For the C major chord, let's take LH 1 3 5 7 RH 2 3 5 7 and play that chord, but this time sustain the chord with the right pedal, and HIT THAT BASS NOTE, extremely loudly! Play the '1,' or in our case, C, down really low on the keyboard. Try playing the chord again, and then sustain the sound, then BAM, hit that bass note. The reason I'm putting that in caps is because I don't want you to just play like "oh that's cool," I want you to feel the power that you can have when you play that bass note as loud as you can to give your chord strength and power. So again, play the full LH RH chord, then play the bass note *BOOM*, and then play your chord again. It will sound like "Chord, Bass Note, Chord," and then after that you can move the whole chord up on the keyboard too, so you're starting it at the next C with your left pinky, which will give it a light feel, especially if you make it a wave chord. Moving Chords in Octaves This is similar to what was just done with bass notes, but it's something I do so often that it's good to go in a little more detail about it. Any chord that you learn as a chord voicing with both hands can be taken up or down an octave, which really gives it a beautiful sound when you combine it with 'waving' the chord. Some chord voicings will be too high or too low, so my rule of thumb is to follow the 'goldilocks principle' by making sure it's not too high to where it's so high that it sounds bad, but also that it's not so low that the sound is muddied up from the bass. http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
Minor 7th Chords Now that you know how to play a Major 7th chord, I'll talk a little more about the difference between Major and Minor chords. To me Major chords tend to sound happier, and just have a strong, bright, and enthusiastic feeling when you hear them. Minor chords tend to be more smooth and they can evoke a sense of sadness, darkness, longing, or other similar emotions. To play a minor 7th chord (again, don't worry about the name too much, it's just a 'dark sounding chord'), play the major chord (i.e. C major - C E G B) and then flat the 3rd and 7th, which are E and B. When you flat those two notes, E and B become Eb and Bb so the chord you play for C minor 7th is - LH - C Eb G Bb).
Sharps and Flats If you don't know what sharp or flat means, just look at the keyboard and see that if you sharp a note, it moves up by one note on the keyboard, including the black notes. So C sharp is just starting at the note C, and then moving it slightly up to that black note right above it to the upper right. For flats, D flat would be that SAME NOTE as C#, but you got there in a different way, because you started on D, and then you flatted D to make it go to the upper left. So when you flat, you move left or down, and when you sharp you move up, or right. C# and Db are the same note, they are just two ways of naming the note that is to the upper left of D and the upper right of C.
Playing Minor 7th Chords With Both Hands
Ok so back to the minor 7th chord ---> When you flat those notes of the LH 1 3 5 7, you end up with C Eb G Bb. What happens now is that the C major scale of all white keys that we http://www.pianobreaks.com
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were playing before is replaced with a scale where the E and the B are flatted to Eb and Bb. We changed some notes in the chord in our LH, so it needs a different scale to go along with it in the RH, so the C minor scale is no longer C D E F G A B C, it is now C D Eb F G A Bb C. Just like the major scale, we can add the 2 3 5 7 in our RH as well, except this time we are using a different scale, so in the LH and RH you'll have: C minor 7th chord LH - 1 3 5 7 - C Eb G Bb RH - 2 3 5 7 - D Eb G Bb
Key Difference Between Major and Minor 7th Chords The only difference between major and minor 7th chords is that the minor 7th chord has its 3rd and 7th notes flatted. That is a key distinction that is really, really important. To go from a major to a minor 7th chord, like C E G B, you take the 3rd and the 7th notes, and you flat them, so 1 3 5 7 becomes 1 b3 5 b7. When you go from a major to a minor 7th chord, the scale that you solo on in your right hand always changes too, so just be aware of that. Since the scale changes, you can call it a 1 3 5 7 or a 1 b3 5 b7, whichever is easiest to remember. A good rule to remember is that if your LH chord is changing, your right hand scale that you can solo in and form chords from is probably going to change too. We'll just call this the 'minor 7th scale' for now, because it's the scale we use over minor 7th chords (major scale with the b3 and b7), but it's good to keep in mind that the technical jazz name for this scale is the 'dorian scale,' just in case you ever hear that term in the future. http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
Getting Comfortable With Minor Chords After you've got that voicing down in both hands, try playing a C minor or major chord and holding it with your left hand, and then playing around with your right hand on the C minor/dorian scale. Just solo without rhythm to get yourself started. Try it in C Major, C Minor, and D Minor. The scales and chords are as follows from before: C Major Scale (all white keys) - C D E F G A B C C Major 7th Chord - LH - C E G B ------ RH - D E G B C Minor 7th Scale - C D Eb F G A Bb C C Minor 7th Chord - LH - C Eb G Bb
------
RH - D Eb G Bb
D Chord Scale - (all white keys) D Chord Chord - LH - D F A C ------
RH - E F A C
Use the right hand notes to solo, it can really sound beautiful if you just play the notes as an arpeggio in your right hand (your RH 2 3 5 7) just like you did for soloing before. Think of them as guide notes that will sound good. You'll want to weave around while you're on that specific chord, and play the main scale too when you want to branch off from just playing '2 3 5 7 arpeggios.' Over time try different note combinations that sound good over each of those previous chords and scales. One really cool progression you can play is just going from the C minor 7th chord to the D chord (which is actually a minor 7th chord too, so it is a 2 minor chord progression) and try switching from soloing http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
like this: C minor 7 - Left Hand - C Eb G Bb ------------ Right Hand plays C minor Scale - C D Eb F G A Bb C and then you SWITCH to: D minor 7 - Left Hand - D F A C ---------------- Right Hand plays D minor Scale - C D E F G A B C, and then you switch back to C minor and go on for as long as you want. This can sound GREAT, especially if you add in bass notes, wave chords, and if you play the full chord with the pedal down and the 2 3 5 7 in your RH. Try playing the full chord, holding the pedal down, and then immediately freeing up your right hand and soloing on the corresponding scale holding the pedal, it can sound really beautiful as the notes mesh together from the pedal and the chord having been played first. Actually just playing the 2 3 5 7 voicing or a 3 5 7 9 voicing in your right hand on top of a beat can sound great, try it with just playing: C Minor 7th - LH - C Eb G Bb ----- RH - Eb G Bb D D Minor 7th - LH - C Eb G Bb ----- RH - F A C E What we did here is - we took the 2 3 5 7 and moved the bottom note to the top note, so for C minor 7th, the RH - D Eb G Bb became Eb G Bb D. This is called a 3 5 7 9 voicing because they are the notes of the scale we're in. Make sure for a chord like D minor 7th, or the D chord, you start counting the 1 from the D, rather than the C like you might be used to. Whichever chord you're on, that chord note is always the 1. For a C chord, C is the 1, for a D chord, D is considered the 1. So a 3 5 7 9 voicing in your RH over this D Minor 7th chord we've been playing is going to be F A C E, because the 3rd note from D is F, the 5th note from D is A, the 7th note is C, and the 9th note http://www.pianobreaks.com
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from D is E. A quick concept to keep in mind - notes really only go up to the 8th, so when I say '9th' I actually just mean the '2,' but one octave higher on the piano. You can always subtract 7 from any note above 8 and you'll get the exact note you would be playing (i.e. if I say play the 13th of C major, subtract 7 to get 6. So the 13th of C major is the note A. If I said play the 8th, you would subtract 7 and just end up playing the 1 an octave higher. Similarly an 11th would just be the 4th.
Finding Major and Minor 7th Chords From Any Major Scale
To find ANY Major or Minor 7th chord from a major scale, first learn any major scale. Once you learn the major scale, form a chord in your LH with the 1 3 5 and 7th notes of the scale. Let's try this for G major (G A B C D E F#). In G major, the 1 3 5 and 7th notes of the scale are G B D F#, so that would be your LH voicing for a G Major 7th chord. In your RH you could play the 2 3 5 7 or 3 5 7 9 voicing, with the 2 3 5 7 being A B D F#. For a minor 7th chord, you would take that LH chord and flat the 3rd and 7th, so you would get G Bb D F, and in your RH you would play A Bb D F. The new scale you would solo on for the minor 7th chord would be the G major scale with 2 notes flatted, so the scale would look like: G A Bb C D E F. Just make sure you know how to find a major scale, and make the chord in your left hand from the 1 3 5 and 7th notes of that scale while soloing in your RH with that particular major or minor scale. Before going on to the next section, I would just have some fun learning more major and minor 7th chords and playing their corresponding scales. Here are some cool ideas to try:
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Switch between E minor to D minor 7th E minor 7th - LH - E G B D ------ RH - F# G B D E minor 7th scale to solo on - E F# G A B C# D E D minor 7th - LH - D F A C ------ RH - E F A C D minor 7th scales to solo on - D E F G A B C D
F major 7th to C major 7th F major 7th - LH - F A C E ----- RH G A C E C major 7th - LH - C E G B ----- D E G B Solo in all white keys and stick to those notes in whatever LH chord you are on.
A minor 7th to D minor 7th D minor 7th - LH - D F A C ----- RH - E F A C A minor 7th - LH - A E G ----- RH - B C E G Solo in all white keys and use bass notes to make it sound really powerful
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©Mark Meronek 2012
Practicing - Developing Fluency On Chords and Scales I tend to make up my own exercises while practicing, and one of the exercises that has really helped me over the years was taking the chords I know (D minor 7th, F major 7th, C minor 7th, etc.) and soloing in their scales with my right hand. I would practice in a very specific way though, because I would take the chord in my life hand (e.g. C minor 7th LH - C Eb G Bb and D minor 7th LH - D F A C) and play that chord 4 times, for four beats. So I would play that D minor 7th chord 4 times on a steady 4 beats in my left hand slowly, and then I would play 1 note in my RH for every beat that I played in my left hand. This might sound a little confusing at first, but all I mean is that you basically have a steady beat going on in your head, like 1, 2, 3, 4, and you play a chord on each of those 4 beats in your left hand, so you're playing the same chord 4 TIMES in your LH on each beat, and in your right hand you use the scale you're on (i.e. D dorian or all white keys) and play a note on every beat too, so you'd be playing 4 notes total in your right hand in that scale you're on. The notes in your right hand are just random notes in the scale that you are improvising, and each time you play a chord on the beat in your left hand, you should be playing a note in your right hand. You can continue this on for as long as you want to get comfortable, and you can always speed up how fast you are doing it to get more and more fluent with the scale in your right hand, while also playing the chords constantly in your left hand. At some point you will speed up so much that you are playing chords too quickly in your left hand and it's getting pretty crazy to play that fast, so then you can move to playing 1 chord on each beat in your left hand, but now with TWO notes in your RH, for every 1 beat in your LH. So now You'll play the LH chord like http://www.pianobreaks.com
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1, 2, 3, 4 and you will end up playing 8 notes in your right hand. Just make sure that you are playing 1 chord in your left hand. It would look sorta like this: Time---------------> LH 1 2 3 4 RH 12345678 See how the LH plays 4 times, and the RH ends up playing 8 notes total? This is just a diagram to show you how on the 2nd time you play your LH chord, you will be playing your 3rd note at the exact same time, and the same with the LH 3 and the RH 5th note, so if you can line those up to be exactly together it will sound like you are playing 1 chord in your left hand for every 2 notes in your right hand. You can keep doing this and still play 4 beats/chords in your left hand, and play 4 notes in your RH for every 1 chord in your left hand, so that would look like this: Time----------------------> 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 The reason why this exercise is so useful is because it makes your RH fluent in any scale you choose to solo in, and you get really used to playing a major 7th or minor 7th chord in your LH multiple times. It helps to connect a particular scale, like our C minor 7th scale (dorian) on a C minor 7th chord, and then you get increasingly fluent in it as you increase the speed at which you're doing the exercise. The other cool thing about it is you can be creative and make whatever melodic lines you want in your right hand, you definitely don't want to just be playing the scale up and down, you want to skip around and make little 'phrases' of notes that sound beautiful to you in that scale, on that chord. http://www.pianobreaks.com
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Once you get really good in one scale and can play 4 RH notes for every 1 LH chord at a pretty fast speed (a bpm of 60 is plenty), then you can try it on another chord, in another scale. I recommend trying it with C Minor 7th and D minor 7th and using their respective scales because it sounds great to go between them, and you will get increasingly more fluent in both of those scales. At that point, you can integrate bass notes, wave chords, arpeggios, etc. and it will sound great. I recommend highly recommend practicing in this way, and as you increase the speed it will feel great when you're able to make melodies on the fly, even though you started by just playing random notes in your RH in that scale. If you're just starting out, start SLOW and gradually increase the tempo with a metronome. Just search metronome on google or pick up one at a music store and use it to practice. Start with the 1 LH chord 1 RH note for 4 beats, and continue doing that until you are comfortable with it at around 80 bpm, playing ALL different notes in your RH, then continue to 1 LH chord 2 RH notes, then 1 LH chord 4 RH notes, and speed it up until you are fluent in that scale, able to improvise notes at a fast pace. You might have some trouble with 'knowing what notes to play,' and feeling like you can't just 'play random notes,' but just start out playing COMPLETELY random notes first. It's not so much the notes you're playing as that you're staying on tempo and making sure to play 1 RH note for every 1 LH chord, it can sound horrible at first, but keep at it until you can summon these random notes in your RH easily. At that point you'll want to start making little melodies that come to you while you're playing, and exploring with the note choices. Have fun with it, create beautiful melodies, and get fluent in minor 7th and major scales! http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
The Order of Sharps and Flats Now that you know how to find Major 7th chords, Minor 7th chords, and you know a good exercise to help you get fluent in each of their scales, let's talk about an important concept called 'The Order of Sharps and Flats.' Introduction to the 'Order of Sharps and Flats' When you learned how to go from the C Major Scale (all white keys) and find the C Minor 7th scale (dorian) by flatting the 3rd and the 7th notes of C Major, the # of flats in your scale went from 0 sharps/flats (C Major scale), to 2 flats (C dorian). This 'counting sharps/flats' concept is really important, because it allows you to quickly know which scale you need to play if you want to solo on a chord. How it works: Major scales tend to be classified by how many sharps or flats they have. It's really easy if someone says to you "Hey - play in Bb major, 2 flats" or "D major, 2 sharps" and you know exactly what they're talking about, because you will automatically know which scale you can solo on in your right hand. This is also a huge advantage because you can figure out the chords to use in your left hand with whatever scale you're in as well. Different major scales have different numbers of sharps/flats. Examples: The F major scale has 1 flat, the D major scale has 2 sharps, E major has 4 sharps, Ab major has 4 flats, etc. There are 12 different major scales, and each major scale has its own major 7th chord, minor 7th chord, and minor 7th scale you can use. What's really cool is that you can take any major scale you've learned, and use THAT scale as a minor scale. http://www.pianobreaks.com
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What I mean is that our C minor 7th scale, with 2 flats, is actually the exact same scale as a Bb major scale, but we're just starting on C. The Bb major has 2 flats, and the C minor 7th scale/dorian scale has 2 flats as well, because we added 2 flats to C major (0 sharps/flats) to get 2 a scale with 2 flats (after flatting the 3rd and 7th). This concept can be a little confusing so I want to make sure it's really clear for you, because once you understand it, it can add a lot of power to your soloing and understanding of how chords and scales relate to each other. Minor 7th Chord and Adding Flats Whenever I turn a Major 7th chord into a Minor 7th chord, I add 2 flats to that major scale. The C Major scale has 0 sharps/flats, and I add 2 flats to it to make a C Minor 7th scale (dorian) that has 2 flats. This is all great when you have a scale like C Major, which starts with no sharps/flats, but what if you have a scale with 2 sharps? Sharps and flats cancel each other out when they are added to one another. It's just like math, where a -2 + 2 = 0. Think of flats like a negative sign and sharps as a positive sign. So if I add 2 flats to a scale with 3 sharps, what am I left with? 1 sharp, because 2 sharps were cancelled out by the 2 flats I added. This might be weird to think of sharps/flats/scales in this way, but bear with me, this simple 'math of sharps and flats' can really pay off in the long run.'
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Quick Sharps/Flats Quizzes For these quizzes, just answer with how many sharps/flats you would have in the following scenarios (haha this feels like school, I don't mean it to be, but I promise this is the closest my lessons will ever get to it!) 1) Question: If the D major scale has 2 sharps, and I make it into a D minor 7th scale (dorian), how many sharps/flats do I have? Answer: I have 0, 0 sharps/flats, because when I add flats to a scale that has 2 sharps in it, those sharps cancel out and I'm left with no sharps/flats. This means that for D minor 7th, I can solo in all white keys. 2) Question: My B Major scale has 5 sharps. I make it a dorian scale (minor 7th scale) by adding 2 flats. What am I left with? Answer: 3 sharps, so over a B minor 7th chord, I can play in the scale of 3 sharps. 3) Question: My scale has 1 flat (F Major scale), I want to play an F minor 7th chord. How many sharps/flats am I left with? Answer: You flat twice to make an F minor 7th chord, and now your scale has 3 flats, so you can solo and form chords in the scale of 3 flats.
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©Mark Meronek 2012
4) Question: A Major scale has 4 sharps (E Major), I make an E minor 7th chord, what scale do I solo on in my right hand? Answer: Scale of 2 sharps 5) Question: My major scale has 3 flats, I make a dorian scale by flatting twice, what scale do I play in? Answer: 5 flats To answer all of these questions, the only thing I've done is added 2 flats, and if there are any sharps, those sharps are cancelled out. If you have a scale like G major, which has 1 sharp, making it a minor 7th/dorian scale would cancel out 1 sharp, and then add 1 flat, so for G minor 7th our scale would have 1 flat in it. I only use this to demonstrate that once you're 'out of sharps' from the major scale, then flats are added. Using the 'Order of Sharps and Flats Now that you know how to find out how many sharps/flats you would have in your dorian scale, you might be a little confused on how to use it. If I say I have 2 flats... what does that even mean? This is where the 'order of sharps and flats' comes in. Once you've figured out how many sharps/flats you have, you can use the shortcut 'BEADGCF' to tell you which flats or sharps you need to change. http://www.pianobreaks.com
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You can think of it like this: The order of flats goes from the left to the right, and the order of sharps goes from the right to the left --------->-----------Order of Flats---------->----------------->
BEADGCF <---------<-----Order of Sharps---------------<--------------So let's say that the dorian scale I just found has 2 flats. From the order of flats, I know that the scale I would solo in has a Bb and an Eb. Now let's say I had 4 flats in my scale - I would flat B, E, A and D, which means I would have Bb, Eb, Ab, and Db in my scale. Scale of 3 sharps - F# C# and G# would be sharped, because I am going from the right to the left in BEADGCF, which is the order that sharps are added in. Let's say I have a minor 7th scale of 5 sharps. Which notes would be sharped? F# C# G# D# and A# Bringing It All Together - Practical Applications You can really learn any major scale and minor 7th/dorian scale at this point, and this is where it gets really cool. Say we want to try soloing on a D minor 7th and an E minor 7th chord, but we don't know what scale to solo on. How would we find both scales? http://www.pianobreaks.com
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Well For the D minor 7th, you could take the D major scale, which has 2 sharps, and flat it twice, which would leave us with 0 sharps or flats, which is also the C major scale. So basically for the D minor 7th chord, you can solo in all white keys, C major, because both sharps were cancelled out. For the E minor 7th chord, you would first look to the major scale to see how many sharps/flats it has (4 sharps), and then flat it twice to give you a scale of 2 sharps. Now that you know the order of sharps/flats, you can use BEADGCF to tell you that F# and C# are the only notes that are sharped, so in your right hand you can play the all white keys scale but with F# and C#, and that will be the scale that sounds good. Ok let's say you want to play G minor in your left hand and you want to find the scale to solo on in your right hand. G major has 1 # in its major scale, so you would add 2 flats to that, which leaves you with 1 flat, because 1 sharp cancelled out, and in your right hand you can solo in a scale with 1 flat. We know that flat is Bb because of BEADGCF, so you would just take the all white keys scale and substitute the B for the Bb, and that's the scale you can solo in. You could also figure out the chords for your left hand like this, because for the G minor 7th scale, with 1 flat, you could just take 1 3 5 7 from G in that minor 7th scale, and that would be your G minor 7th chord. In this case, since the scale is all white keys with only a Bb, in your left hand the chord for G minor 7th would be G Bb D F, and you could solo on that 1 flat scale in your right hand. Ok one last example - F minor 7th - The F major scale has 1 flat, which we flat twice to give us 3 flats, so we can solo in 3 flats in http://www.pianobreaks.com
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our right hand. The 3 flats that are flatted are Bb, Eb, and Ab. In our left hand we can play F Ab C Eb, or 1 3 5 7 starting from F in this '3 flats' scale. Use all of this knowledge you've learned here about sharps and flats to help you solo on new minor 7th chords. Every time you learn a new major scale, you can pick a major 7th and minor 7th chords to solo on, find out the number of sharps/flats there are in the minor 7th scale, and then solo on that scale in your right hand, while using the major scale for the major 7th chord. One Important Connection to Make Whenever you find out 'how many sharps/flats' there are for a minor 7th chord, like, say, 1 flat for G minor 7th, notice that you can either think of it in terms of a minor 7th scale, or a major scale. What I mean is that the G minor 7th scale is the same as the F major scale, because they both have 1 flat. Once you start making those connections, playing with scales and chords becomes really easy on major and minor 7th chords. Say that in my music I have the chords 'F major 7th and G minor 7th' right next to each other. If I ever saw that in my music, I would know that I can play the F major scale over both of those chords, because I already know that G minor 7th has 1 flat, and F major has 1 flat, so I can just use the same scale on both of them. The take home point of all this is that whenever you find a minor 7th scale to solo on, you can also think of it in terms of a major scale, like the D minor 7th scale is ALSO the C major scale, because they both have 0 sharps/flats. All other minor 7th chords are connected to major scales too, and as you learn more and more, you will make more of those connections that allow you to solo a lot easier because you are thinking in terms of sharps/flats and major scales. http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
Playing Jazz Songs and Chord Progressions This section will be more about playing chords for more traditional jazz songs, but a lot of these chords and scales can be used in jazzy hip hop, soul, funk, blues... really whatever other type of music you want to learn.
Dominant 7th Chords Just as we just went over major and minor 7 chords, there is another chord called a dominant 7th chord that you should know. Dominant 7th chords can be differentiated from major or minor chords by how they sound, because they always sound like they want to resolve to another chord, which is often a major chord. Dominant 7th chords just have an interval of 2 notes that are very dissonant, or that just don't sound good together that makes them want to "resolve" to a major chord. Major chords are built on the major scale, and minor chords are basically the major scale with a flatted 3rd and 7th, but dominant 7th chords are actually just the major scale, but with a flatted 7th and that's IT, no flatted 3rd, because dominant 7ths keep their regular 3rd. Try playing a dominant 7th chord, (which in music will be notated by a letter and a number, like G7). First learn the G major scale (G A B C D E F# G). Play G major 7 by playing its major scale and then playing the 1 3 5 and 7th, so G B D F# just like we've been playing in our LH. Then flat the 7th note, so you are left with G B D F. This is your G dominant 7th chord, G7. Since it is a dominant 7th chord, G7 wants to resolve to a major chord, so try playing that G7 chord, and then play a C major 7 chord, C E G B. You'll notice that there is a kind of 'resolution' from the G7 to the C major 7 chord when played after one another. http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
This is a very common progression that I will get into on the section about 2-5-1s, but for now just know that dominant 7th chords always sound like they want to resolve somewhere to another chord. Also, as a quick note, minor 7th chords are usually written like G7 or Gmin7, so if you're playing jazz song just be aware of that in the music to tell you what chord to play. Whereas GMaj7 or G Major7 would mean a G major 7th chord, dominant 7th chords are always just a letter and a number, so we just write G7. Let's look at the differences between these 3 types of chords: major, minor, and dominant 7th chords. Here are all 3 in C major with their corresponding scales LH Chord C major - C E G B C major scale - C D E F G A B C C minor - C Eb G Bb C minor scale - C D Eb F G A Bb C C dominant 7th -C E G Bb C dominant 7th scale - C D E F G A Bb C
Very Important Concept - Make Sure You Understand This!
You can find out how to play ANY major 7th, minor 7th, or dominant 7th chord for any note easily by always going back to the major scale, playing the 1 3 5 7 chord, and then flatting what is necessary. For example, if I want to find out how to play F minor 7 in my left hand, I should learn the F major scale first, then play the 1 3 5 7 F major 7 voicing (F A C E), then since it is a minor 7th chord http://www.pianobreaks.com
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that we want to find out, I flat the 3rd and the 7th, so the chord ends up being F Ab C Eb. Another example is A minor 7, how do I find that chord? Play the A major scale, form an A major 7 chord by playing 1 3 5 7 (A C# E G#), then since we want to play A minor, we just flat the 3rd and 7th of that chord to play A C E G, which is the correct chord. To find a dominant 7th chord, it is the exact same process, like for A dominant 7th, we just take the A major scale, form an A major 7 chord, then flat the 7th note and you will have your A dominant 7th chord. Just remember that you ONLY flat the 7th to get a dominant 7th chord from the major. For a major 7th chord it is even easier, because all you have to do, just like C major, is to learn the C major scale, then play 1 3 5 7 from C (C E G B) and you don't even have to flat any notes since it is a major chord. Shortcut To Forming Maj 7th, Min 7th, and Dom7 Chords Here is a shortcut to remember the differences between major, minor, and dominant 7th chords and how to get them: Take a Major Scale and play 1 3 5 7 in your left hand, then: For Major Chords - Don't do anything, just play 1 3 5 7 in Major scale For Minor Chords - Flat 3rd and 7th For Dominant 7th Chords - Flat 7th Only You can play the 2 3 5 7 or 3 5 7 9 voicing in your RH for any of these 3 chords
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2-5-1 Progressions A 2-5-1 is a type of chord progression that is used frequently in all kinds of music, and in my opinion it's really the most important chord progression to learn if you want to play jazz. Now that you know what major, minor and dominant 7th chords are and how to form them, I can teach you 2-5-1s because they are just an arrangement of those 3 types of chords. First though, you might find it helpful to know what a "key" is, like when I say the "key of C major," what does that really mean? A key means that the chords of the song you're playing are based on the same major scale, like for C major, all of the chords you are playing would mostly contain white keys because you are in that "key" of C major. Getting back to 2-5-1 progressions though, here is an example of a 2-5-1 in the key of C major, try playing the chords with the left hand as shown: D minor 7 - G7 - C major 7 Left Hand Voicing D minor7 - D F A C G7 - G B D F C Major 7 - C E G B This should sound like a nice little chord progression that 'resolves' to the C major chord, which just means that it sounds like "everything is where it's supposed to be" because the dominant 7th chord 'resolved' a little of its dissonance, or tension, in that chord by going to the C major chord. A perfect song that demonstrates what 2-5-1s sound like is the song "Sunday Morning" by Maroon 5, you can hear the first http://www.pianobreaks.com
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chord, which is a nice smooth minor 7 chord, and then a dominant 7th chord that has a little bit of tension, and then finally a resolution by that dominant 7th chord to the major 7th chord. Notice that the notes D and G are the 2nd and the 5th notes in in the C major scale, this is why the progression is called a 2-5-1. In a major scale, each note in that scale, like the 1st, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. have a corresponding chord that goes with them when you are in a key.
Major Key Chords
So if you are on any major scale, you can try forming a chord by just playing one note, and then playing every other note in that scale from that note you are playing. That might be a little confusing, so to demonstrate: If I am in C major, and I pick one note (let's say the note F, which is in the C major scale) and I play every other note from that F note in the C major scale, which is all white keys, then I will end up with F A C E. I got this from starting from F and then just playing every 'other' note in the C major scale, so I started on F, skipped the G so I played A, then I skipped the B to play C, and then I skipped the D to play E and ended up with F A C E. You can do this with any of the notes, like try starting on the 3rd, E, and playing every other note in the C major scale, which would end up being E G B D. When you do this with any of those notes in a major scale, you will end up with a chord that corresponds to the following in the key of C major: 1 - C "Major 7" - C E G B 2 - D "Minor 7" - D F A C 3 - E "Minor 7" - E G B D 4 - F "Major 7" - F A C E 5 - G7 or G "Dominant 7" - G B D F 6 - A "Minor 7" - A C E G 7 - B "Minor 7" Flat 5 - B D F A http://www.pianobreaks.com
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So notice that for any major scale, the chords will be just like this, even if you go to another scale like G major. if you form a chord from the 1 in G major (the "1" note would be G) and play every other note from that G IN THE key of G major, you will end up with a G major chord, G B D F#. This is the same type of chord you would get if you did it just like above, where you take the C major scale, start from the 1, and play every other note from that C note, you will get a Major 7th chord. If you start from the "6th note" in the G major scale, which would be E, and you play every other note in the key of G major, then you will end up with an E minor chord, E G B D. You can try this for any major scale and use the above chords as a guideline, try it for the F major scale. What would be the "1" chord in the key of F major? According to what's written above, the 1 chord in a major key will ALWAYS be a Major 7 chord, so the "1" chord in the key of F major would be F major 7. What would be the "2" chord in the key of F major? Well you look for the 2nd note in the F major scale, which is G, and then you go every other note from that note, in the key of F major, and since the key of F major has a Bb in it, you will end up with a G Minor 7 chord, which would be G Bb D F. You can just take any chord you might need to know and test it with this shortcut table above, like if I want to know what the "6" chord is in C major, just go to the 6th, and we know that in a major key, the 6 chord is ALWAYS a minor 7th chord. This may be a little confusing but just know that these are the types of chords that you will get if you play a major scale, pick a http://www.pianobreaks.com
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note in that major scale, and play every other note from that note. You will get the same "kind" of chord depending on what the number of the note is, like the 3rd would always be a minor 7th chord, the 5 would be a dominant 7th chord, the 1st would be a major 7th chord, and so on according to the template that is written above.
Back to 2-5-1s and Playing Jazz
So what does this all have to do with 2-5-1s and playing jazz? Well since 2-5-1s are just an arrangement of chords based on a major scale, if you want to find out how to play a 2-5-1, then you should know that the "2" signifies a minor 7th chord, the 5 would be a dominant 7th chord, and the 1 would be a major 7th chord. In other words, an easy way to play this progression is to first learn a major scale, like let's say the F major scale, then go to the 2nd note and play every other note from that note in the F major scale (G Bb D F), which ends up being a G minor 7 chord, then go to the 5 and do the same thing by playing every other note and you will get C E G Bb, then go to the 1 which is F and play every other note from that note in the F major scale, and you will end up with F A C E to give you an F major chord. When you're playing jazz songs you will see these "2-5-1" chord progressions constantly and it will be written like this (2-5-1 in the key of C major): D-7 G7 CMaj7, or D Min7 G7 CMajor7, or many other ways, they can be written with varying notation but these are pretty common ways of writing them, where the "minus" sign means "minor." You will also see triangles that mean "major," and yes I know it's weird/confusing but some musicians must have liked geometry because they use circles and circles with lines drawn through them too, but we'll leave that for another time. http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
LH 2-5-1 Progression in C Major So let's explore a 2-5-1 progression like the one above in the key of C major, written: D-7 G7 CMaj7 So you will see the progression look almost exactly like this on a jazz music sheet (also called a 'lead sheet'), since jazz sheet music often only has the chords written plus the melody line. This is different from normal sheet music because in classical music there is one staff for the treble clef and one for the bass clef as opposed to jazz where there is usually only the treble clef and a chord written above it. So back to this 2-5-1 progression, what makes it so special? Well when you have a progression like this, and you notice it in your sheet music, it makes choosing what notes to play a lot easier when you are soloing. If you see a D-7, G7, and C major 7 chord written right in sequence like that, what makes 2-5-1s so special is that in your right hand you can solo in the "key" of the 1 for that whole sequence of chords. So, if you see D-7 G7 C Major 7 in your music, then you can play the chords in your left hand, and solo over the C major scale in your right hand the whole time, over all of those chords. Try it now, play this progression as follows: D-7 - D F A C G7 - D F G B C Major 7 - C E G B
For this G7, just note that I inverted 2 of the notes, so if you http://www.pianobreaks.com
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played it like G B D F before, I just took those top two notes down and moved the D and the F to the bottom of the chord instead to make it easier to play with your left hand. This can be done for any chord, like a C major 7 chord is C E G B, but you can also just play G B C E and it will be the EXACT SAME chord, it is still a C major 7 chord, just inverted. It may look a little weird to play a C major 7 chord like that, with G B C E, but I assure you it is still a C major 7 chord even though it looks weird and it doesn't have your pinky playing the 1 (the note C). As long as all of the notes are being played in the chord, it is still the same chord.
Soloing Scales For a 2-5-1 Progression So over this chord progression, you can play any notes in the C major scale, all white keys, solo as long as you want while playing these chords, and it should all sound good. Quick tip: the note E is a great note to land on and will sound good over all of the chords if you want a note to land on when soloing. 2-5-1s are also really useful to know because over this entire 25-1, you can also solo on pentatonic scales, just like the C major pentatonic we learned earlier. Over this 2-5-1 in C major as you are playing the chords with the left hand as noted above, try playing the C Major pentatonic scale, which would be C D E G A and continue up the keyboard while you switch chords in your left hand. This should sound pretty good over this progression, and I would spend some time to just mess around on it, going up and down the pentatonic scale while you play those 3 chords (and once you get to the C major 7 then you restart at the D minor 7 chord and just keep playing D-7 G7 Cmaj7).
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Using the Blues Scale To Solo On a 2-5-1 Progression Another scale you can use to solo over a 2-5-1 is called the 'Blues' scale. The Blues scale is formed by taking the following notes: 1 b3 4 b5 5 b7 1 So the C blues scale would be: C Eb F Gb G Bb C, and it should sound very... bluesy! I don't think there's another term to describe it besides what it is, just imagine a country hick playing a banjo or harmonica and singing the blues on this kind of scale and I think you'll get the picture. So what do blues scales have to do with 2-5-1s? Well if you notice a 2-5-1, like say this C major 2-5-1 we've been working on, you can use the blues scale of the "6th" note of the key that you are in. So since we are in the key of C major and this is a 2-5-1 in C major, then we go to the 6th note, which is "A," and we can play the A blues over a 2-5-1 in C major. A blues is as follows: A Blues Scale - A C D Eb E G A Try using this scale over the 2-5-1 in C major with those same chords you've been playing, which are, for your LH: D-7 - D F A C G7 - D F G B C Major 7 - C E G B and now solo in A blues in your RH. It should sound really cool, especially if you play the D Eb and E really quickly. http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
2-5-1 Turnaround Chords You can also add a turnaround chord to the end of this 2-5-1, which is just a chord that makes the chord want to "turnaround" back to the 2 so you can just keep playing the 2-5-1 over and over again. You can basically use this chord as a kind of 'reset button' that makes you turnaround back to the 2 chord. The way to find the turnaround chord is to play the dominant 7th chord of the 6th note of the key you're in. That might sound confusing, so let's break it down. We're doing a 2-5-1 in the key of C major, so since we know the key we're in, we can go to the 6th note, which is A, and play A dominant 7 as a turnaround chord. So now our progression is D7 G7 Cmaj7 A7, and I will just tell you straight out how to play the A7, but could also find it yourself by first knowing the A major scale, then playing 1 3 5 7 for A major, and then flatting the 7th since it is a dominant 7th chord (not the 3rd though, flatting the 3rd is only for a minor 7th chord!): D-7 - LH - D F A C G7 - LH - D F G B C Major 7 - LH - C E G B A7 - LH - E G A C# So what you've learned so far is how to play a 2-5-1, the different chords that are in a major scale, scales that you can use to solo over them 2-5-1s (pentatonic of the 1, blues scale of the 6th, Major scale of the 1), and how to find turnaround chords (the dominant 7th chord of the 6th).
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Cool Scale for the A7 Turnaround Chord Something a little more advanced you might want to try is to solo over this 2-5-1 in the C major scale, but then when you get to the turnaround chord, A7, you can solo in the harmonic minor scale of the 4th of A, which would be D harmonic minor. Harmonic minor scales are just a major scale with a flatted 3rd and a flatted 6th, so C harmonic minor would be C D Eb F G Ab B C. If you don't understand this and it's getting too scale-y for you, that's totally cool, instead just try playing the scale below on the A7 chord and you'll see how cool it sounds. The D harmonic minor that you would play over this A7 chord would be: D Major Scale - D E F# G A B C# D so flat the 3rd and 6th D Harmonic Minor Scale - D E F G A Bb C# D So try playing that D Harmonic Minor scale over the A7 chord in your LH (E G A C#) when you are turning around back to the 2 to keep playing the 2-5-1 and it should sound really cool.
Playing From The 'Real Book'
If you want to learn jazz songs, I would suggest buying a 'Real Book,' which is a collection of jazz songs, and try to play easy songs with chords you've already learned, like C major or C minor or D minor. The song "Fly me to the moon" and "Alice in Wonderland," as well as "Emily" are probably doable at this point, or at least you can read some of those familiar chords and play them immediately. If you ever see a Maj7, Min7, or dominant 7th chord you don't know yet, then you can always go back to the basics and ask yourself: "Hey how do I form a B major, B minor, and B dominant 7th http://www.pianobreaks.com
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chord?" "Well first I learn the B major scale, and play the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th notes in the scale in my LH, and that will be my B Major 7th chord. I can solo on the B major scale. B minor will just be that same chord, except the 3rd and the 7th will be flatted, and I can use that scale instead. For the B dominant 7th chord, I will only flat the 7th, so I will play basically the major chord with a flatted seventh in the left hand, and solo on the B major scale with a flatted 7th, instead of the regular B major scale." Knowing how to do that, and being able to find and play the chord you want to play, when you want it, as well as knowing the scale to solo on it, is an incredible power that allows you to get started playing and soloing through jazz songs. Of course, there are other chords that you might not know yet, like diminished chords or augmented chords, but don't worry about those right now. Stick to songs that have a lot of maj7, min7, and dom7 chords so you can practice forming them and soloing on their scales, it's really fun to just pick random songs and try them out to see if you like them. While you'll need to learn to read the notes for your right hand, in the treble clef, the cool thing about the Real Book is that you don't have to read both the left and the right hand at the same time, you can just read chord symbols to tell you what to play with your LH, and just read the melody to the song for your RH instead. The song sheet (also called a lead sheet) will just say something like 'C maj 7' and have the melody notes, which means you just play C major 7 in your left hand, play the melody in your right hand, and after you play the melody you can solo on all of the chords that are written there with the scales you've either learned, or know how to find. http://www.pianobreaks.com
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What is really important though is learning those chords you already know in the other keys, and recognizing the relationships between the chords so you aren't limited to just chords based off of C.
Listening, Improvisation, and The Flow State Listening is also incredibly key to getting good at piano, or just playing music in general. If you started out as a beginner in this guide, this is a really important point to touch on. Keep in mind this is all my opinion and my experience in learning jazz and improvising, but I think it's essential that you understand what it feels like for me or another jazz pianist when you improvise freely from the heart. I can't speak for others, but this is my personal experience:
Music as Language To me, music really is a language, and there is so much truth in that common saying when you think about it. Go check out some really amazing jazz pianists like Keith Jarrett or Oscar Peterson, and watch their mouth while they're playing. It's pretty crazy to think, but their mouth and tongue actually moves while they're playing, or if not, they make slight sounds as they play that are barely noticeable (well, in Keith Jarrett's case it's a bit more noticeable... good times), but definitely still there. I've noticed that that same thing actually happens to me too, where my tongue moves when I play, and I think it comes a lot from having to learn how to vocalize rhythms as you learn piano. My point is that when you play music, you are actually communicating with the audience and expressing yourself to them in much the same way you do when you're talking, and they interpret it and have emotional responses to it in much the http://www.pianobreaks.com
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same way as well. If you want to get better at piano and improvisation, this is HUGE in helping you progress, because if music is just like learning a language, the most important part of learning is INPUT, not output. Think about it, a baby doesn't even learn to speak until it has hundreds (thousands?) of hours of input from all of the adults speaking around it, and music is really the same way. Most likely you already listen to a lot of music, but you definitely want to listen to tons of music in the style that you want to play, so that just like a baby, it can get internalized in your system so it feels natural when you actually go to play it. And just like phrases and syllables that the baby starts to speak, as you listen to more jazz/hip hop/soul/classical, all of the music will start to spontaneously come out in your playing through your melodies and chords, 'the building blocks of the musical language.' Your chords and melodies are your phrases and syllables, and the measures and bars are your grammar, etc. etc. I think you get the point, but it is really true at a deep level! Anyways so the cool thing that happens is that as you listen to music and learn more and more chords, you have more and more ways to express yourself through the language, either by copying what 'other people are saying' and trying it out for yourself, or by forming your own 'sentences' based on what you want to convey. If you end up listening to a jazz pianist and copying his melodies/harmonies and style of playing, it's like learning a new way of expressing yourself, and all of his 'sentences' and 'ways of speaking' are stored in your brain for use at the most opportune times when you're improvising. It happens to me really often, where the music that I've listened to comes alive spontaneously in my improvisations, without even having to try. You'll find yourself quoting the same melodies or phrases from your favorite jazz pianist and have no idea how it came at the http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
exact, perfect time, without any conscious effort on your part. It's really an awesome feeling when that happens, and the only way it can ever happen is from tons of listening, and learning new chords building blocks to express yourself. After you have that thousands of hours of input, and after learning so many different ways of expressing yourself from hundreds of different pianists/musicians through listening, you are free to just basically forget about everything, and start playing whatever comes to you in that moment. When you do that, you open your mind to allowing your unconscious, your 'creative side,' whatever you want to call it, to take over, and you don't consciously have to strive to do anything. In this state, your mind draws upon every single melody/chord/way of expressing yourself through the piano that you've ever heard, and it uses them to improvise spontaneously in the moment, and you're left in this space where you don't even have to try to do anything, it all just flows and is effortless and joyful. That's really what I love about playing piano and improvising in a nutshell, that feeling of freedom and boundlessness when I'm playing. Oh... THAT Feeling! You probably already know the spontaneous feeling I'm talking about from your own conversations with other people, because in my experience, it's really similar to when you're just having a really good conversation with someone you care about and everything flows naturally. It's like that feeling when you're in a social situation or at a party where everything you do and say is AWESOME, no matter what you say. Like you are saying all of the right things at exactly the right times, in exactly the way you want to convey it, and you're constantly amazing yourself at how witty and awesome you are. You ask yourself "where the heck did that come from? That was hilarious!" It's that feeling where you're just flowing from person http://www.pianobreaks.com
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to person, effortlessly connecting on a deep level with all of them, and you don't even have to stop to think or worry, it's just really joyful and fun. That flow state, of just playing and doing without thinking, is what happens when you learn how to express yourself freely on piano. It's really the same thing that a professional tennis player or a good speaker goes into, but it's so freaking cool because you get to do it through music, and you don't even have to speak to affect people and touch them emotionally through the music. That feeling can only happen once you have had a lot of exposure to music, but almost everyone has been listening to some kind of music throughout their life, I don't care if it's Justin Bieber or Gangnam Style, you are already exposed to tons of chord progressions just by hearing them. It just gets better and better too as time goes on, because you learn more and more jazzy chord progressions, scales, melodies, etc. and have a lot more input to draw from in your creativity. Sometimes you can listen to a completely different genre of music, and somehow that melody will come alive without your thinking about it, and you'll end up playing a (why am I using this example...) Justin Bieber melody on your C major 7th and D major 7th chords, and you're just like "Baby, Baby, Baby Oh" and then you ask yourself "WHERE THE HECK DID THAT COME FROM?" in anger, (or sheer joy because you love the Bieber), but then you realize that it's a similar chord progression, and then you say "wow that's cool, I wonder what other melodies use this progression?" (hint: C maj7 to D min7 with a 2 3 5 7 voicing is what the mario star song is based on). All I'm saying is that the music that you listen to can really affect your playing and the more you listen to, the more cool things start to happen in your playing. I can definitely say that for me, I would never have been able to http://www.pianobreaks.com
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play jazz or improvise like I can now without having listened to years upon years of jazz, hip hop, classical, and other genres of music constantly throughout my life. Listening also helps you play with other musicians, because just like a conversation, all the members of the group are constantly communicating and you'll only be able to get a vibe for what each person is wanting to 'say' if you're familiar with many different styles of music, their 'way of speaking,' their 'grammar,' and the sort of 'unspoken guidelines' for how to respect each other in that communication. Anyways I'm belaboring the point, but what I'm really saying is: LISTEN TO TONS AND TONS OF MUSIC IN THE STYLE THAT YOU WANT TO PLAY AND IT WILL HELP YOUR PLAYING IMMENSELY!!!!
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Final Points This guide is the best I've been able to think up to help someone get started learning jazz chords and improvisation. It's been really challenging, a little crazy, and tons of fun for me to condense my thoughts and break down the fundamentals of what's helped the most in my 10 years of piano playing, and I hope you've gotten some great use out of this. I've taught you a lot of ways to find and play chords, so now use what's in this guide and combine it with improvising from the heart. Piano is not all notes and scales, it's about a real human being bringing their soul to the table and conveying their emotions to all that are listening. If you're ever performing on stage or for other people, remember to really give it all you've got - you never know whose life you might affect at a really deep level with your playing, especially when you bring as much of your own authenticity, passion, and excitement that you can muster. If you want more resources for these kinds of jazzy chord progressions and improvisation techniques, I have 18 free video lessons you can watch at Pianobreaks.com. They are full lessons on incorporating these jazzy chords and techniques into your playing, so definitely check them out if you're interested. Don't forget the 3 Laws of Pianobreaks, and always remember to keep your piano time as YOUR time, not anyone else's, with no shoulds or obligations. Keep the piano as a completely sacred place, free from all of the stresses and distractions that life throws at you. Expressing yourself honestly on piano is a really beautiful thing too, so don't be afraid to share that beauty with others, both through your own playing and by teaching them how to play beautiful music. I hope this guide has been a positive influence on both your piano playing and your life with music. Take care, and remember (as corny as it may sound, it's true!): Never stop playing what you love! -Mark http://www.pianobreaks.com
©Mark Meronek 2012
